TEDKG 04

Chapter 04

Autumn 1856, On the Way Home from Changdeok Palace

Throughout the entire journey out of Changdeok Palace, Heungseon-gun Yi Ha-eung said nothing.

He remained silent even inside the palanquin, and he still hadn’t spoken by the time we passed through the gate of our residence.

I quietly endured the silence.

There was no need to rush him.

Heungseon-gun Yi Ha-eung was undoubtedly replaying everything that had happened today in his mind.

He was probably trying to determine whether the passage from the Analects that I had deliberately used to target the Haedong Kim clan in front of Queen Dowager Sinjeong had been something I had prepared beforehand or something I had come up with on the spot.

As we entered the courtyard of the residence, Heungseon-gun Yi Ha-eung stopped walking.

He turned toward me.

His eyes had changed.

It wasn’t suspicion.

It wasn’t surprise.

It was the gaze of a man who had made a decision.

“Did you think beforehand about what you said in front of Her Royal Highness today?”

“Yes, Father.”

“Since when?”

“Since I recovered from the fever.”

“Weren’t you afraid when you brought up that passage in front of her?”

“I was afraid.”

“And you did it anyway?”

“It was something that needed to be said.”

Heungseon-gun Yi Ha-eung stared at me for a long time.

I could feel the final calculation taking place behind his eyes.

Without saying another word, Heungseon-gun Yi Ha-eung turned around and walked into the reception hall.

His silence was the answer.

It meant that he had decided to include me in his calculations once again.

Now I had to dig deeper into Queen Dowager Sinjeong.

The next time I entered the palace, I would have to take one more step forward.

Autumn 1856, Hanseong — Heungseon-gun Yi Ha-eung’s Residence

I closed the door to my room and sat down, organizing everything that had happened today.

The direction I had established at the gathering in Huijeongdang had gone according to plan for the first step.

But planting a seed and making it sprout were two completely different things.

Queen Dowager Sinjeong remembering me and trusting me were entirely different matters.

Likewise, Heungseon-gun Yi Ha-eung including me in his calculations again and actually choosing me were two different things.

To move Queen Dowager Sinjeong, I needed her trust.

But trust could not be built through a single meeting.

It had to be accumulated little by little over several years.

To move Heungseon-gun Yi Ha-eung, I had to prove my usefulness.

Father was a practical man.

He was moved by calculations rather than emotions.

Therefore, I had to demonstrate through my actions that his eldest son was more advantageous than his second son.

The Haedong Kim clan would come last.

If I provoked them right now, there would be a backlash.

A nine-year-old couldn’t confront the Haedong Kim clan head-on.

I needed to find their weakness, wait for the moment when that weakness surfaced, and then strike using Queen Dowager Sinjeong’s hand.

Seven years remained until 1863.

The order of things was important.

If I rush, I’ll die.

I’ll proceed in order.

I called my servant, Gaksim, and had her sit down.

Gaksim widened her eyes and knelt before me.

“I told you to sit.”

Gaksim awkwardly sat down on the floor.

I looked straight at her.

“From now on, there’s something you need to do.”

“Yes, Young Master.”

“I want you to tell me every day who comes and goes from this residence, which family they belong to, and when they arrived and left.”

“Th-that…”

“Can you do it or not?”

Gaksim was silent for a moment before lowering her head.

“I’ll do it, Young Master.”

“The same goes for rumors circulating outside. Bring me everything you hear.”

“Yes.”

“And don’t tell anyone about this. Not even His Excellency.”

Gaksim raised her head and looked at me.

Something trembled in her eyes.

It seemed that Gaksim had already realized that this young master was not an ordinary child.

“Understood, Young Master.”

Gaksim left the room.

From now on, I would begin to see what was moving within the residence.

Spring 1857, Hanseong — Heungseon-gun Yi Ha-eung’s Residence, Servants’ Quarters

During the winter, the information Gaksim brought me gradually accumulated.

Which family’s servants had visited the residence.

To whom Heungseon-gun Yi Ha-eung had sent letters.

What rumors were circulating around the residence.

There was nothing immediately useful yet.

But an intelligence network did not produce results from the beginning.

Information became useful only after it accumulated and began connecting to other information.

Around the beginning of spring, Gaksim came to me with a report.

“Young Master, a court lady from Daejojeon in Changdeok Palace came to see His Excellency this afternoon. She entered through the back gate and stayed in the reception hall for about an hour without anyone knowing.”

I raised my head.

“Which quarters does she serve?”

“She said she serves in Daejojeon.”

Daejojeon was Queen Dowager Sinjeong’s residence.

That meant Queen Dowager Sinjeong had sent someone to Heungseon-gun Yi Ha-eung.

And she had done so secretly.

It meant Queen Dowager Sinjeong was also considering using Heungseon-gun Yi Ha-eung in preparation for the day King Cheoljong died.

I needed to establish contact with that court lady.

I had Gaksim find out when the Daejojeon court lady would visit the residence again.

It was three days later.

Three days later, in the morning, I waited near the back gate.

When I saw the Daejojeon court lady leave the reception hall and head toward the back gate, I quietly approached her.

“Court Lady.”

The court lady stopped and turned around.

Confusion crossed her face when she saw a young child.

“Young Master, what brings you…”

“I have something to tell Her Royal Highness.”

The court lady’s eyes narrowed.

“Young Master, I cannot possibly…”

“You were in Huijeongdang, weren’t you? During the ceremony for His Majesty’s birthday.”

The court lady fell silent.

Her eyes swept over me once again.

She remembered the scene in Huijeongdang.

The nine-year-old boy who had used a passage from the Analects to target the Haedong Kim clan.

She would also have noticed how Queen Dowager Sinjeong’s gaze had changed at that moment.

“I know what Her Royal Highness most wants to hear.”

The court lady stared at me for a long time.

She wasn’t looking at me as though I were a nine-year-old child.

She was looking at me as though she were facing something she could not understand.

“The day the Haedong Kim clan’s power ends is not far away. And I also know who will bring about that end. Whether Her Royal Highness wishes to hear this or not is for you to decide, Court Lady.”

The court lady was about to refuse once more.

Then she stopped.

Slowly, she lowered her head.

“I will convey your words.”

The court lady passed through the back gate.

I watched her retreating figure and let out a breath.

I’ve opened a second route to Queen Dowager Sinjeong.

Several days later, Gaksim entered my room.

“Young Master, I subtly asked the court lady from Daejojeon.”

“What did she say?”

“She said Her Royal Highness was silent for quite some time after hearing your words. Then she told the court lady this: ‘At the next audience, bring that child to me separately.'”

“Find out the date of the next audience. And until the day before, gather every rumor circulating in the court concerning the Haedong Kim clan.”

“Yes, Young Master. May I ask why?”

“Because I need to prepare what I’m going to say before Her Royal Highness.”

Gaksim lowered her head and left the room.

Queen Dowager Sinjeong intended to summon me personally.

The fact that she wanted to see the eldest son separately rather than going through Heungseon-gun Yi Ha-eung meant that she was beginning to regard Yi Jaemyeon as a person separate from Heungseon-gun Yi Ha-eung.

That was exactly what I wanted.

Summer 1858, Hanseong — Heungseon-gun Yi Ha-eung’s Residence, Servants’ Quarters

I gathered five household servants in one corner of the servants’ quarters.

They were people Gaksim had personally selected over the course of six months.

Her judgment had been accurate.

I closed the door and looked around at the servants.

“From today onward, I’m going to teach you two languages.”

The servants exchanged glances.

“Western speech and the language of Japan.”

Their eyes widened.

One of them cautiously spoke.

“Y-Young Master… how could we possibly learn the language of the Western barbarians…”

“It’s not the language of barbarians. It’s a language Joseon will absolutely need to know in the future.”

“What use would learning such a language be?”

“You’ll understand when the time comes. For now, just memorize it.”

The servant fell silent.

The memories of a thirty-two-year-old modern man remained inside me.

English and Japanese were languages I had used for decades, from my school days through my working life.

And the tongue of this nine-year-old body remembered all those pronunciations.

A little more than twenty years from now, American and Japanese legations would be established in Joseon.

Japan would enter the scene first through the Treaty of Ganghwa in 1876, followed by the United States through the Joseon–United States Treaty of 1882.

Inside those legations, Americans and Japanese would freely exchange important information.

They would speak without hesitation, thinking:

Would a Joseon servant understand English?

Would he understand Japanese?

My eyes and ears needed to be planted there when that time came.

The servants lowered their heads.

Language was different from a sword.

The moment someone saw a sword, they became wary.

But if you didn’t reveal that you possessed knowledge of a language, there was no reason for anyone to be suspicious.

In a little over twenty years, once foreign legations were established, the Joseon court would lack people capable of speaking foreign languages and would have to rely on interpreters.

The meaning of words could change depending on whose side the interpreter was on.

But things were different if a servant could understand them.

A servant wouldn’t attract attention.

Standing beside his master, pouring tea and cleaning the room, he could hear everything.

The five people memorizing the alphabet in this servants’ quarters today had the potential to become Joseon’s greatest intelligence network more than twenty years from now.

No one knew.

And no one could know.

I started with English.

“A, B, C, D, E, F, G…”

The servants awkwardly repeated after me.

“A, B, C…”

Their pronunciation was terrible.

That was only natural.

They simply needed to repeat it.

The human tongue eventually became accustomed to unfamiliar sounds.

After teaching them the alphabet, I moved on to basic words.

“Water—물. Fire—불. King—왕. Power—권력.”

Next came Japanese.

“A, I, U, E, O. Ka, Ki, Ku, Ke, Ko…”

The servants followed along again.

This time, they learned a little faster.

The structure of the pronunciation was similar to Joseon’s language.

After an hour, I looked at each servant one by one.

“What you learned here today must never be spoken of outside.”

The servants lowered their heads.

“I said never. Don’t tell His Excellency. Don’t tell your parents or siblings. What happens inside these servants’ quarters must never leave these servants’ quarters. Understood?”

“Yes, Young Master.”

“If this information gets outside, you already know what will happen to you, don’t you?”

The servants’ expressions hardened.

They lowered their heads even further.

“That will never happen, Young Master.”

I nodded.

Then I looked at Gaksim.

“You need to memorize the most diligently. You’ll be using these languages more than anyone else in the future.”

Gaksim’s eyes widened before she bowed deeply.

“Understood, Young Master.”